“Spiritual Nazism.” Those are the first words out of my rabbi’s mouth when I tell him I’m reporting on Messianic Judaism. To him, the prospect of Jews accepting a Christian salvation narrative, but still identifying as Jews, constitutes nothing short of the destruction of the spiritual life of a people.
But after nearly a year of studying and reporting on this phenomenon, I have my doubts about this dire indictment. Messianic Judaism, despite its promoters’ predictions, will not be radically changing Judaism anytime soon. It is, however, radically changing how Jews and evangelicals relate to one another and how evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic Christians perceive Judaism, Jewish-Christian relations and the politics of the Middle East.
To some Jews, the growth of Messianic Judaism represents a mortal threat. There are an estimated 175,000 to 250,000 Messianic Jews in the United States, 350,000 worldwide, and 10,000 to 20,000 in Israel. This isn’t too dramatic, although it’s difficult to assess the future impact of new religious movements as they’re developing””who knew in the mid-19th century that the Mormon Church would be what it is today?
I don’t know how to take this piece. I view the split between Jewish and Gentile Christianity as unfortunate and I think we are the lesser for having forgotten our Jewish heritage. I think that we are poorer Christians for it, after all Paul says that we are grafted in.
I also think that we need to respect our Jewish brothers and sisters because they are still God’s chosen people and they remain the vine into which we have been grafted. And as we Christians loose Sunday to Sunday sports and activities, it wouldn’t do us harm to rediscover Shabbot.
My current reading is Oskar Skarsaune’s “In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity.” He reviews much of the recent scholarship related to this, and describes an early Jewish Church which remained Jewish while accepting Gentiles who lived according to the Torah’s requirements for Gentiles living among Jews (don’t eat food sacrificed to idols or blood, as well as the moral law). In the early years believers who were also Jewish, and remained so, were the norm.
Judaism as a whole and in Israel currently accepts a wide range of opinion and Torah observance, and actually this was true in the first century AD. It is easy to see, though, because of the many centuries of Christian antagonism to Jews, why Jews today might feel defensive.